On Jul 16, 7:45 pm, wrote:
On Jul 16, 3:30 pm, Michael Coslo wrote:

There are plenty of unrestricted places on the market *now*, because
of
the RE market slump and the mortgage crisis.

Maybe in your area, but where I live CC&R's are the rule and they will
all pretty much restrict antennas for ham radio use. It all depends
on when the average house was built in your area. The standard way
this works here in the Dallas area is developer buys large tract of
land, applies CC&R's to the tract, subdivides and develops the land to
sell the houses he builds. He throws in a pool and play ground across
from the model homes which is owned by the HOA that gets created by
the CC&R's. 99-100% of the new homes available in the area I live will
come with CC&R's based on these boilerplates. (Personally I know of
NO new homes in my current price range for sale with 10 miles of my
house that won't have CC&R's.)

I've seen only ONE subdivision in my area that would have allowed
antennas in their CC&R's but it was a very special case. The CC&R's
didn't originate with a builder, but where adopted by the land owners
AFTER the subdivision was plated. Those CC&R's where a model of
simplicity and basically dealt with keeping unsightly things to a
minimum. (Keep your house painted a normal color and in good repair,
no junk cars, lawns mowed, fences in good repair etc.)

The problem is that the big builders have boiler plate CC&R's that
change very little between subdivisions. All of these boiler plates
contain restrictions on antennas and are constructed to never expire.
More and more land is becoming off limits to ham radio antennas and
this is a bigger problem in areas that have been under active
development for the last 20-30 years such as Dallas.

Therefore I have to object to the "just move" response to the plight
of hams in CC&R communities. It may be an option for some, but for
others it may not. At some point I may choose to move, and CC&R
restrictions on antennas will likely be something I look at. I can
tell you that I won't be able to buy a comparable house for the same
money without CC&R's in Murphy or the surrounding area. There are
areas that allow them, but they do not compare with where I live in
price or age. Yes, I could drive 40 more miles a day and perhaps find
something that would work, but with the cost of driving these days I’d
be moving into less of a house for sure to make ends meet.

In addition to this, all the CC&R's I've read in my area are usually
drafted to NEVER expire. The only way they will go away is if all the
land owners agree to it (fat chance of that). This land will forever
be of limits for antennas. Year after year as new subdivisions are
built, more and more land will be CC&R's restricted unless they are
limited by law.

As an aside on CC&R's which are all the rage... There are fundamental
problems with CC&R's and pesky HOA's under the current law. Depending
on how they are drafted, they can end up causing some seemingly very
unreasonable consequences for homeowners that may not be obvious by
reading them. Personally, I think they should be put under some
really strict legal limits and the powers of HOA's strictly limited.
But all that is another issue...

All in all I can only hope that this CC&R Craze comes to an end pretty
soon. I don't think they are as much a benifit to landowners as they
are thought to be. But until they fall out of favor to the public or
get pre-empted by law they will only increase in coverage.

Personally, that scares me.

-= Bob =-